In Zimbabwe, four out of 10 sexually active girls aged 15-19 reported taking an HIV test in the last 12 months. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS HARARE, Nov 21 2013 (IPS) – Seventeen-year-old Natalie Mlambo* has two good reasons to get tested for HIV. She has two boyfriends and has unprotected sex with them. One is a…
Former cricket captain Imran Khan administers oral polio vaccine to children in Akora Khattak in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS. PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan 3 2014 (IPS) – The Taliban are proving to be a huge stumbling block for Pakistan as the South Asian nation one of only three remaining polio endemic countries…
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 7 2014 (IPS) – When Phumzile Khoza* came to the central Johannesburg antenatal clinic on a chilly day in August 2013, she was feeling on edge. Not about the medical procedures – she already had two children – but about talking to the nurse. One in four South African women experience intimate partner…
Community-based volunteer Zainab Abubakar (r) administers the first dose of amodiaqune to one-year-old Inusa as he sits on his mother, Ayishetu Hamdellah. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah/IPS ZANDUA, Ghana, Apr 29 2014 (IPS) – Zainab Abubakar saves children’s lives. A few years ago she was just an ordinary woman with no medical training living in rural Kpilo…
A women-led village council prepares a “social map” of the local community. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS BANGKOK, Jun 26 2014 (IPS) – The Bangkok Declaration on Disaster Risk Reduction in Asia and the Pacific adopted at the close of the 6th Asian Ministerial Conference On Disaster Risk Reduction (AMCDRR) here today emphasised community-based solutions, and reflects…
Permaculture enthusiasts with their harvested produce. Credit: Graham Bell/IPS BUDAPEST, Jul 28 2014 (IPS) – Food security is often thought of as a question of diversifying supply and being able to move food through areas plagued by local scarcity, relying on the global economic system – including trade and transport – as the basis for…
Antonio Vigilante is Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Representative in Liberia An Ebola victim is carried by health workers for burial on May 13, 2014. Credit: ©EC/ECHO/Jean-Louis Mosser MONROVIA, Sep 11 2014 (IPS) – As the Ebola crisis continues to take a toll on people’s lives and livelihoods in…
Srun Srorn, trainer for the E-learning project, shows teachers at Koh Kong High School how the sexual education curriculum works. Credit: Michelle Tolson/IPS KOH KONG PROVINCE, Cambodia, Nov 5 2014 (IPS) – The transition to puberty can be an awkward experience for youth to navigate. In Cambodia, sex education is moving increasingly into the virtual…
In this column, Andrew MacMillan, former director of the Field Operations Division of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and joint author with Ignacio Trueba of ‘How to End Hunger in Times of Crises’, argues that behind the so-called success of globalisation lie problems that are “taken for granted” and little thought is given…
Vehicle ownership in India is projected to hit 400 million by 2040 from the current 170 million, which could prompt a five-fold increase in poisonous gases emitted by cars and trucks. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS NEW DELHI, Feb 25 2015 (IPS) – Like many others of her age, 15-year-old Aastha Sharma, a Class 10 student at…